


It'll Keep

by RookHill



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ficlet, Growing Old, Love Confessions, M/M, Nostalgia, Romance, Trauma, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:08:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22856764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RookHill/pseuds/RookHill
Summary: Grimmauld Place is a corpse of a home, though not everything is dead inside.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	It'll Keep

Grimmauld Place is full of strange noises. Which is bothersome, when you’re trying to read. Remus is deep in the tatty loveseat, coffee on his breath and yellow lamplight spilled over his jumper. There’s scratching in the walls. Pixies, most like. Some rattling upstairs. If they’re lucky, only a ghoul. And then there’s the pacing in the hall outside, but he knows it’s just his roommate trying to come into the parlour and failing, over and over. A less patient man would spare the creaking boards their burden. But Remus is patient. He can feel his pulse in the roots of his teeth.

Sometime at the start of chapter seven, Sirius shambles in. His housecoat is melting off his too-thin body and his long, black hair doesn’t know where to be. His eyes won’t land on anything. The pads of his feet are picking up dust from the carpet.

“Why don’t you come and sit?” Remus asks, patting a pillow. It wheezes dirt into the air.

Sirius obeys. He jumps on the sofa, arms and legs and all, then remembers he’s meant to be a human. He switches to sitting on his backside, but it doesn’t seem comfortable.

“We need to talk,” Sirius admits. He scratches his scalp in agitation. The tattoos on his knuckles are watery blue. “I’m going mad, not talking about things. Well, I was mad to begin with.”

Remus shuts the book and sighs out a breath he’s been holding in the deepest room of his chest. “You’re not mad, Padfoot,” he says, careful. “You're hurt. Merlin knows you’ve a right to be.”

Sirius shakes away his pity. He’s crazy, and he’s known that awhile. “I just… I wanted to say… Well. I know I’ve changed. You’ve changed. And it could never really be the same, could it?”

Remus thinks on that a space. He’s different now, certainly. Too many bread crusts and too many searching hands in the backs of bars. Too many sheets that smell like mould, nights with that patch of burnt ground in Godric’s Hollow.

“It’s been twelve years,” he agrees.

Sirius sniffs. His eyes are all red, like back when he smoked cigs. “The thing is…” he says, “I just, I love you. And I need to say it, even though it’s pathetic. And I’d like to be your friend still, if that’s alright. I just want to be close. Because you’re all I have, really. You and Harry. You’re all I have.”

Remus would push him down on the lopsided cushions, if he weren’t so patient. Count all those sharp ribs with his mouth, make the sofa weep feathers and forgotten coins. He just rubs his thumb over Padfoot’s tattooed knuckles, remembers when the runes were crisp and sore.

“I couldn’t stand that, you know.”

Sirius looks like a kicked puppy. It’s a remarkable impression, since he’s halfway there.

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how I like to tease you,” Remus chides. “I mean that I love you. After everything. I could never quite stop myself.”

Sirius didn’t use to cry like this. Not back when he strut around their one-bedroom flat in his motorcycle leathers, bothersome heart shoved deep in his sleeve. But now it's all on his face, all in his ratty hair, then Remus’ jumper, staining good and deep and long.

“We’ll have to learn each other again,” Remus whispers, throat aching tight, "but that’s not so bad.”

Then fifty-eight moons, stoppered and trembling, spill out in a gush. He pets Padfoot’s hair, his back, tucks his wet nose in that spot below his ear. Breathing. They fit together like bits of shattered china.

Sirius gives a dizzy laugh. It’s broken off in places, though it’s still the one from that train going home.

Fourteen and chocolate-sticky lips. Forever.


End file.
